Bella's new and improved life
by VikingDane
Summary: Bella is hated by everyone in her school, except for her best friend Jacob and she has planned to move away. Soon she meets Edward and everything changes.     They're all just normal humans.
1. Chapter 1

Bella, 19 almost 20 years old, had just graduated from the last year of High School and summer break had now begun, until she had to finish her education. She was pretty sad, because now she had to say goodbye to her friends. 'Friend' was more accurate actually. The school she had to attend at the end of the summer was pretty far away.

She was walking slowly towards her house with her eyes on the sidewalk, when a guy, she hadn't seen, bumped into her. Apparently he hadn't seen her either.

"Sorry," Bella muttered, but didn't look at him.

"Don't think about it," she heard him say.

Bella continued home and didn't think more about the guy.

A quarter of an hour later she was standing in her own little hall in her own little apartment. She lived alone, because both of her parents were unable to take care of her. Her mother was dead, drowned in a lake close to the apartment and her father was a drunk, who didn't want to have anything to do with her.

Because of that she had saved up some money for the little apartment she now lived in.

Bella stood in the middle of her apartment and looked around. She still wasn't used to living there, even though it was years ago she moved in.

All the time and again she was thinking of her mother. Bella had only been 4 years old when the accident happened, so in 9 years she had to put up with her father's alcohol problem. Because of that she simply didn't care about him any longer. Even if he was gone for several days she didn't care.

Bella threw her bag on the floor at the door to her room, sat on the bed and started to cry. She missed her mother so much. When she lived they had been together almost all the time, as far as she could remember. Living alone was lonesome, but she didn't really have a choice.

The only positive thing she could think of, while she was crying on the bed, was that she was going to meet up with Jacob the next day. Jacob was her only and best friend. They had been best friends since fifth grade.

Jacob was the last thought she had before she fell asleep with tears in her eyes.

Bella woke up many hours later and looked automatically at her watch. It was almost 3 o'clock in the morning, which meant she had been sleeping for about 12 hours.

When she couldn't sleep anymore she went out in the small kitchen to get something to eat. She found some crisp bread and sat down at the table in the middle of the kitchen.

"What in the world am I going to do until 12 o'clock?" she muttered between two bites.

After she'd taken something to eat she watched TV and read a book and finally her watch showed 12:00. Now she was only waiting for Jacob.

It knocked on the door 10 minutes later and Bella ran out to open the door. She threw her arms around him at the first glimpse of him. "Hi," she said. Quickly she took her jacket and then they left. They weren't planning to do anything special; they were just going to hang out. There were still many weeks till she left, but Jacob was going on a vacation and when he came back she would already be gone. "I'm really going to miss you,"" Jacob said and added, "I'd wish you would choose a school in this area."

"I can't. I HAVE to get away from here. You know that the only thing that matters to me here is you, everybody else hates me."

"That's not true. They don't hate you; they just don't know you well enough."

"They don't know me well enough to like me," she corrected him.

"Stop that," he said. "Why is it that I'm not reason enough for you to stay? I mean, what's the point in leaving, when you don't know any of the people living there?"

"The point is exactly that I don't know any of them and they don't know me. Jacob, I'm leaving no matter what, so let it go."

The rest of the afternoon they were both pretty down, but they still had a good time. Bella felt a little bit better after seeing Jacob, but she was still determined to leave.

It was now 7 o'clock in the evening and it was time for Bella's usual walk. She'd walk longer this time, 'cause she hadn't walked the day before. She would soon find out that that decision would be the best she'd ever made.

A little over half an hour had past and she had walked 3 km. She only needed one more and then she could return home. She decided to run the last km and just when she speeded up she bumped into _him_.


	2. Chapter 2

Bella fell back down on the sidewalk, as did he. She winced a bit and then looked at the person she'd bumped into.

"I'm sorry. Are you okay?" he asked politely.

"Yeah, I think so."

The guy got up and helped Bella afterwards.

"Thanks," she mumbled and looked up at him.

"We've got some weird ways to meet each other," he suddenly said.

"What do you mean?"

"We bumped into each other yesterday too."

"Oh, so that was you?"

He nodded and stretched his hand forward. "Edward Cullen," he introduced himself.

Bella shook his hand and a feeling she'd never felt before suddenly flowed through her. "Bella Swan."

She just stood there and looked at him and the fact that she was holding his hand was all but forgotten.

Edward smiled, looked at their hands, then at her eyes and raised inquiringly one of his eyebrows.

Bella could feel the heat rise to her cheeks when she noticed that she was still holding his hand and then she quickly let go of it.

They accompanied each other in the direction from which Bella came. She had to walk that way later anyway. For some reason it was nice walking beside him, even though he was a stranger to her.

They didn't talk so much, but Bella looked more than once discreetly up at Edward. He was extremely good-looking!

"Do you take a walk every day?" he asked. Bella assumed he asked that in lack of better things to talk about.

She hesitated a bit. "Yes."

"I don't think I've seen you here before."

"I don't usually walk this far. It was only because I forgot to take a walk yesterday."

"Oh, okay."

The silence took over again and neither of them spoke before they reached the road where Bella had to turn.

"I have to go this way so… um… well, I hope we meet again," she said slowly.

"You, too."

She looked at him one more time and saw that he was smiling warmly at her. Quickly he turned his face away from her. Maybe she wasn't supposed to have seen it? She got embarrassed and hurried down the road.

How could a heart react so strongly because of a person you'd just met? And probably wouldn't see again? It was too ridiculous.

Bella threw herself down on her bed when she got home and looked up at the ceiling. She shook her head. "Forget him…" she said into the quiet room. If only she had some girlfriends, she could ask them if her reaction on Edward was normal or not. But it didn't really matter because she wouldn't see him again and she would soon move away.

A short time after that, she fell asleep. She dreamt about her mother, about the time when she'd been alive.

Bella woke up in the morning with tears in her eyes, but didn't quite understand why. She couldn't remember that she had dreamt about her mother, but something made her walk down to the lake where she drowned so long ago.

It was early in the morning and freezing, yet Bella was sitting in a pair of jeans, a thick sweater and had a blanket over herself by the lake, where the wind blew the most. The tears from when she woke up were still streaming down her cheeks, they wouldn't stop. She had realized why she had gone to the lake, and the pain inside her kept burning. She couldn't bear it, she wanted to disappear.

Bella lay back down on the grass and her tears suddenly made her very tired. Her eyes closed slowly and she fell asleep.

Later when Bella woke up from the sudden sleepiness she could feel that she was lying on something, that someone was embracing her. She opened her eyes. First she didn't recognize the person and stared at him. Then she knew. The beautiful face and the nice brown eyes, which looked at her with a look she didn't quite get. Bella sent him a confused look and forgot to get embarrassed about the fact that his arms were put around her.

"Why are you lying out here? It's freezing," he said and now she recognized the look he sent her. He was worried. Never had anyone sent her a look like that.

"Um… I fell asleep," she muttered as an answer, but mostly as a conclusion to herself.

"How long have you been lying here? You were ice-cold when I found you just now." Edward stroke his hands up and down her arms to warm her a little bit more.

Bella was suddenly aware that he was so close to her and quickly moved away. "Since early this morning." Quickly she looked at the lake, when she suddenly remembered the reason she was there in the first place. Once again the tears were streaming down her cheeks. She put her hand over her mouth as to hide her sobs.


	3. Chapter 3

Edward looked at her surprised. "Why are you crying? What's wrong?" he asked.

"I don't wanna be here!" Bella sobbed.

It was only just that he understood what she had said. "Why not?"

"Be…Be…" That was the only thing she could say.

Even though they didn't know each other Edward pulled her into his arms and stroke her hair. He couldn't do anything but wait till she was done crying.

A couple of times she exclaimed the words: "I can't… I don't want to…"

After a long time there finally didn't come any more tears and Bella hid her face by his shoulder. She'd never cried in front of anyone before, she was embarrassed, but it felt nice.

Edward pulled her away from himself and looked deeply into her eyes. "What's wrong, Bella?" His voice was gentle, but firm.

She looked at him, hesitantly. Should she tell him or not? He _was_ in fact the only one who had ever worried about her, except for Jacob, of course.

"The short version: My life sucks," she mumbled.

"Wanna tell me about it?" he asked. He smiled warmly to her as to say that she could surely trust him.

As if he had a special power over her she started talking. Bella told him about her mother, who had drowned, her father, who wanted nothing to do with her, and the friends she didn't have.

"No friends at all?" he asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah, one. Jacob, my best friend." Her voice was still pretty low. She was ashamed of her pathetic life, but it was nice telling it to a stranger, well, an almost stranger.

"Why is it that you, who doesn't know me at all, wants to listen to all my complaining?" Bella pulled herself away from him and looked at him inquiring.

"Well, it can sometimes be good to tell something like that to someone you don't know." He shrugged and smiled at her.

"That still doesn't explain why you want to listen to me?"

"Guess not. Well, I listened because I could see that you needed it. I couldn't just let you lie out here, could I?"

Bella was thinking that there had to be some kind of ulterior motive. Why in the world would he help her? They didn't know each other, as she'd pointed out earlier. Could it really be that he only helped her because it looked like she needed it?

Edward noticed the examining look she sent him, but let it go and said instead: "You should really go home. Maybe you're not aware of it yourself, but your lips are almost entirely blue."

Bella let her tongue slide softly over her lips, which true enough had to be blue, because they were ice-cold. She led her hands to her cheeks to feel if the condition was the same. It was hard to feel it, because her hands were cold too, however not as cold as her face. She tried to stand up, but she had sat down for too long so her legs were all numb.

"Let me help you?" he offered and helped her on her feet.

"Thank you," she muttered and waited for the feeling in her legs to come back. Finally she could feel them and stretched her body a little before she started walking.

Edward took her blanket and put it around her shoulders, while he walked up in front of her and looked her in the eye. "I know I don't have the right to boss you around or anything, but I want you to go straight home, so you can get warm, okay?"

She nodded and started to walk again. "See you," she said to him in a low voice.

The next day Bella was in her bed almost the whole day. In the evening she went out. She went to the places she'd seen Edward. She wanted to thank him, but she couldn't find him anywhere. What were the odds anyway?

Bella searched her pockets for money and went to the nearest convenience store. She bought some gum and a soda. On the way out she saw him. It was only his back she could see, but she was sure it was him. He turned around the corner, and she could no longer see him. She started to run. When she turned around the corner herself there was no sign of him at all. Where could he have gone in that short amount of time?

She slowed down to a walk and looked carefully in every direction. "Edward?" she called.

After a few minutes she sighed and gave up.

She took a piece of gum and walked back towards her apartment.

"Bella?" a voice said somewhere to the right.


End file.
